Posted by Kimmo Laine on 05/15/06 14:40

"Tony Marston" <tony@NOSPAM.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:e49mta$pvm$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> "Andy Jeffries" <news@andyjeffries.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:pan.2006.05.15.09.54.44.663938@andyjeffries.co.uk...
>> On Sun, 14 May 2006 16:38:26 +0100, Tony Marston wrote:
>>> The removal of case-insensitive functions names would be a totally WRONG
>>> move IMHO as it would serve no useful purpose. The argument "to be
>>> consistent with other languages"
>>
>> I'd say a better argument would be so it's consistent with itself.
>> Variable names and member variables are case-sensitive so it's counter
>> intuitive to a beginner to have the language partially case-sensitive.
>>
>> Just MHO....
>
> But if a language allows the same name to mean different things if
> specified in a different case this could lead to code which is confusing
> and therefore difficult to maintain. It *should* be the primary objective
> of every language to avoid such features instead of deliberately
> implementing them. This is why the GOT verb is frowned upon and excluded
> from many languages, and why the ALTER verb in COBOL is considered an
> absolute no-no.
>
> In the English language a word has only one meaning regardless of case
> (such as 'dog', 'Dog' and 'DOG') so why should computer languages be any
> different?
>


WeLL IF that IS iNdEED the CAse That CapS Don'T MATTER at all in ENgliSH
then why DO You SupPose We HaVE them IN thE FIRST PlacE? If IT dOEsN'T MAKE
AnY DIFfeRence TheN WHY is Writing likE This annoying? I say that they DO
have more than one meaning. Why do we write spoken languagues like English
starting each sentence or name with a capital letter and the rest in small
letters? It's just a set of rules, and when spoken the caps doen't mean
anything.

Why do we have these rules then? To distinct certain differences, to improve
readability of the writing. For instance 'Jack' and 'jack' mean different
things. With a capital J Jack is someone's name, but with a lower case j it
could mean a microphone plug or a jack hammer. Equally in PHP it's common
practise that defined constants are written with CAPITALS and mostly
everything else in lowercase. Likewise it's traditional to write SQL
KEYWORDS in capital and fieldnames in lowercase in an SQL query. There _is_
a difference between small and capitals, you just fail to see it because
you're clinging to the fact that PHP is a spoken language (which it is not).

--
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